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Tuesday, 23 April 2013

The Adventures of Creative Girl

I met my first friend
at university, Sarah, in the introductory lecture to our degree. I remember
being extremely shallow and deciding to talk to her because I really liked her
outfit. I’d probably be more embarrassed about this if, after a few weeks of
hanging out together, Sarah hadn’t admitted to me that she couldn’t remember my name when I'd first given her my number and so had stored me in her
phone as ‘Creative Girl’. I was delighted and begged her not to change it. I’m
basically a superhero.

I’m not unused to people
forgetting my name, and I don’t take offence if they do. I love it when friends
admit that they googled how to pronounce my name when we first met. I also don’t
mind it if people continually pronounce my name wrong because it means a lot that
they are making an effort rather than avoiding saying it all together. Ek, my
own sister, couldn’t say my name until long after she started talking (for some
reason she called me ‘Eyes’…any ideas why?). Over the years, I’ve become
accustomed to answering to a variety of different things.

When I was in
reception, my teacher pronounced my name wrong. I was too shy to correct her
and consequently I spent my entire school career being called a different name
to my own. This means that any non-Indian person that met me before September
2008 says ‘Avani’ so that it rhymes with ‘have any’. Eventually I became brave
enough to correct the teachers who pronounced my name as ‘Av-are-knee’, but
never brave enough to tell them it wasn’t ‘Av-any’ either. Once I’d corrected them the first time, people tended to remember how
to pronounce the version I gave them.

Sometime over the
summer period before starting uni, though, I decided enough was enough. If I didn’t
introduce myself properly, I would spend my entire adult life as ‘Av-any' as
well.

I can still remember
the first time I tried out my new-old name. I had just arrived at my university
halls when I heard voices in the kitchen. It was maybe five steps from my
bedroom door to the kitchen door, but during that walk I was more nervous about
whether or not I would be able to introduce myself properly than I was about
meeting new people and making friends.

I took a deep breath and
pushed the door open.

Two guys were standing
there. I waved, registering that they both had brown hair and wore glasses.

I tried to smile. They
introduced themselves

And then it was time.

My mouth was suddenly dry. My own name felt heavy
on my tongue. I had to force my lips into the right shapes.

‘I’m Uvni,’ I said, and all hell broke loose.

Okay, well no it didn’t.
But I hadn’t expected the transition to be quite as
bumpy as it was. I didn't realise just how hard it would be for
people to get their heads around ‘Uvni’, especially when ‘Av-any’ was so easily
managed. Even though my parents struggle with ‘Thomas’, or ‘Charlotte’, or even
‘Jane’, it never really occurred to me how much people rely how names are spelt
to help them learn how to pronounce them.

‘Say the ‘A’ at the
start like a ‘U’,’ became my refrain. ‘And then the ‘a’ in the middle is
silent.’

But that, of course,
only worked for people who had exactly the same accent as I did.

One of the two guys I
first met in the kitchen soon came up with:

‘Say ‘oven’. Then say ‘ov’. Then say ‘Ov-knee’.
Then say ‘Avani’.’

And I won’t lie – I
must have used that trick a thousand times in the five years since.

My school friends find
all this hilarious, they don’t really understand why, in all those years, I
never told them that they were saying my name wrong – and they’re right. I’m
fully aware that it’s no one’s fault but my own. The only explanation I have is
that I wasn’t brave enough. I was so scared that people would make fun of me
for not correcting my teacher straight away, and then with each year ‘Av-any’
became harder and harder to come away from. These days, the friends I’ve stayed
in touch with call me ‘Av’ - not so different from ‘Uv’, which is what
my family call me. And, more often than
not, if they’re full-naming me they’ll put on an over-the-top Indian accent and
go for it.

And whilst I have no
difficulty introducing myself as ‘Uvni’ any more, I do sometimes wish it was
acceptable for me to go by ‘Creative Girl’.

The plus side of having a name with lots of vowels in it is that it is extremely alphabet-letterable. We had to makeshift a T for Ek, and poor Ruch still gets called Boch to this day.

It's so interesting to read that you were scared of correcting people, whilst I was terrified of being corrected! I'd go out of my way to try and get people's names right the first time, but there's only so many times you can ask them to repeat it before you just feel obtuse! Luckily my best friend at secondary school liked to be known as Pj (her full name was Prabjoth), but I never really considered that she might have been just as keen to avoid the awkwardness as I was.

With a brother called Evan (frequently mistaken for Euan) and a boyfried called Rhodri (who my Dad repeatedly called Rodney at first), I'm both very grateful that Amy is nice and easy, but also a bit jealous that you all get something so unique. There's always another Amy!

It does get awkward having to correct someone's pronunciation of your name, but I try to imagine how embarrassed I'd feel if I found out I'd been saying someone's name wrong for ages and they hadn't corrected me. When I was a kid, though, it was more that I was painfully shy than anything else. I didn't talk to anyone haha. Whilst I'm fine with 'Avani' now, I'm still extremely conscious about naming my characters. I talk the talk about wanting children's fiction to be more representative, but I still can't bring myself to use anything more Indian sounding than 'Maya' or 'Lena' or 'Sara'. Poor effort!

Rodney, eh? My boyfriend's grandma is Italian and really struggles with my name - I get Ivy, Agnes, Agni, Aver-ni...the lot. I love it though. Ivy is my favourite.

Thank you so much for reading, Amy. Sorry for the long response - I was excited!